


Remembrance Part III

by A_N_Whitmore



Series: Totality [3]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Hope, Loss, Multi, Polyamory, Rebuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:42:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25395580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_N_Whitmore/pseuds/A_N_Whitmore
Summary: The remanding of souls to the earth is never an easy thing, but on the day that Haymitch and Katniss bury their loved ones, they find release in song.
Relationships: Haymitch Abernathy/Katniss Everdeen, Haymitch Abernathy/Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark, Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Series: Totality [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1834213
Kudos: 7





	Remembrance Part III

**Author's Note:**

> PETA Warning: For all those PETA enthusiasts, Haymitch accidentally kills a fox stealing his prized male goose, one of the only breeding males in Twelve. They use the fox for food the way my grandfather did when we were young. Yes I have had fox, yes it is good if done right. Deal with the reality that these people live off the land. It hurts but they aren't going to waste what nature gives them. For all those wondering what it may taste like? Think of beef with an acidic bite. Very good with Sauerkraut.

The sun is starting to rise when we separate and dress, neither of us talking but feeling more at ease with each other than we’ve ever been. We go back down to the dusty room and pick up my family with quiet contemplation and head back down and across to the friendly warmth of the place we call home. One positive memory in that place is left behind as we remove a sad one.

Katniss sits in the living room watching Plutarch on the viewer, a green man roll lit in her hand and a cup of coffee in the other.

“How long have you both been up?” Peeta helps me set the chest down before the altar and kisses me lightly on the cheek before crossing through to kiss Katniss in a loving greeting.  
She sees the chest and stops speaking as I walk upstairs stripping quickly for a shower. I don’t know what to say to her in this situation.

“Hi honey, I’ve been unable to cope with my dead brother and mother being killed by Snow and have kept their bones; which Snow conveniently put in my dead potential fiancé’s trousseau that my brother carved. Our lover discovered them with you the other day while you were looking for the land deeds! Sorry you had to see that.”  
I feel like a crazy person, keeping their bones for over twenty five years now. I should have just buried them on the grounds of our old house and have been done with it.  
Things couldn’t be helped now, they were what they were. As I let the water run down over my body, I sigh, today is the end of it. Today is the end of my looking back.

Coming back down I see that Peeta has set out an offering, fresh gorditas with cheese and ham.  
He hands me a plate and a fresh cup of black coffee and has me engaged in a conversation about greenhouse farming before I can even begin to think.

“I think if we can build a second greenhouse we can get a better yield of carrots and squash, maybe we could harvest the poblano seeds and plant them instead of having to get them shipped from Four.” Suddenly things click into place, a shared greenhouse made from my old home. It was the perfect excuse to erase twenty five years of hell.

“Why not use my place? I’ve been itching to build something and… if things don’t work out I have a choice of twelve other homes to move into.” I laugh sardonically. The thought of leaving them scares me, would I ever be able to come back to a solitary life? Only three weeks in and I was addicted. They say once an addict, always an addict, you just exchange one poison for another.

“What wouldn’t work out? Us?” Katniss walks over, her robe wrapped comfortably about her slim frame as she sits in Prim’s chair tossing her slippered feet on my lap as Peeta pours another cup of coffee for himself and I.

“I only meant it as a mere suggestion sweetheart, a worst case scenario,” I gently rub at her foot listening as Peeta talks about submitting for supplies to rebuild the home into a greenhouse the size of which I am suggesting.

“We could use solar panelling and mirrors on a timed system, it would direct the rays at certain times of day, even recycle the water used in a hydroponics reverse pressure system.”  
The man could have been an engineer as well as a baker and cook. Me I was a decent planner, but I don’t think I would have thought of it in this fashion.

We could build a bigger school house in the back, right near that patch we cleared, make a playground. There’s plenty of land we can clear, shift the town center? Make it larger?” Katniss speaks with her hands as she talks, her voice becoming more animated at the thought of having a more direct relationship with the town again.

The town had moved closer to Victor’s Way since rebuilding, an unconscious effort on mine and most likely deliberate effort on Johanna’s. Land was being cleared for the Hob by the road leading off Victor’s Way, toward the church and the meadow. 

_“We want to avoid the mines. It’s fucking amazing this shanty town didn’t collapse in a cave in”_  
Johanna had a way with words. 

“Hey, sorry to interrupt Peeta but what time did Johanna and Annie say they were getting in?”

“About two, why? They wanted to be here for the dedication at four.”

“Johanna and I can get started on the designs with you tonight.” I sip at the coffee before wondering if I could find a spare of Peeta’s sketch pads.

Katniss spoke up, “Do we still have Finnick’s old things? The journal he left? The bangle?”

“In our keepsake box the one in the hope chest with your mother’s quilts.”

“He left a letter for Finn’s birthdays.” He didn’t want Annie to know he knew she was pregnant.” Katniss taps at the table with trepidation.

“He is almost a year old now, Annie sends us letters every month.” It dawns on me that my lovers have gotten closer to my fellow victors in ways that I could have never done. They’re able to get through by sheer magnetism. Their personalities seemed to mold and fit any situation. In every way but a few, I was rigid, and unchanging. I was like iron except with my addictions.  
==================================

Around eleven Katniss gets ready to go and check the traps and fishing lines as Peeta goes to start on a new painting, which leaves me to my own devices for the first time in days. I needed to feed and water the animals if Katniss hadn’t done it and milk Sadie and Lady. The cheese and soap would need seeing to as well.

The barn is colder than usual. Damn the side door leading to the woods was open. Did I forget to shut it? No, dipping down I could see the divot of evidence, a fox had dug underneath the door. Luckily I’d been smart enough to clip the geese’s wings but it meant being unable to run from danger. Sure enough as I look down wind, a fox trotters across the yard towards the woods with my one and only Steinbacher gander hissing in it’s grip.

“The hell you don’t!” I reach back into the barn taking up Katniss’ spare bow and quiver of arrows, soon back and taking aim at the red bastard. I let the arrow fly like Katniss taught me but I am pleasantly surprised to have the fox yelp and drop, my gander struggling out of the fox’s hold, injured heavily but not mortally so. Walking up, I survey the damage as he waddles with blood on his neck from the fox’s initial attempt at a bite. Must have been young to fail so bad.

“Alright there, you’re all right, I speak softly showing the goose I’m no threat. He’s a young male I’d raised from a chick, but injuries could change any personality. The gander soon stops hissing and allows me near enough to grab him, folding him under one arm and retrieving the felled fox with the other. Rounding up the rest of the gaggle along with some now very full goats, (who’d been grazing on the grass still beneath the snow for at least two hours if not more), I bring them inside. We needed a guard dog. I block the door and brace it, filling the hole in.

Walking around to the back door I duck back to the barn’s main entry point and once more collect my poor prized gander and the fox. As I open the back door I find Peeta fixing some tea.

“Hey, thought you were upstairs painting.”

“Primed the new canvas, just waiting for it to dry... You caught a fox?”

“Sure as hell did, the first one in a year, tried to get my gander. We won’t have geese to sell at market if this guy goes.” I point to the beleaguered gander caught under my arm, “Want to get me the antibiotics from the cupboard on the left near the larder? By Prim’s cupboard. Should say duramycin.”  
Peeta pulls out the brown bottle along with a syringe and I watch his eyes not leaving the view of the needle as he sets it on the counter. Needles… I should have had him hold the goose. Yet, wouldn’t that produce the same dilemma? Peeta was not a fan of needles for the obvious reasons.  
Yet, I watch him shift the needle towards me with a shaky hand and he backs off breathing through his obvious fear.

“You alright there?” 

“Yeah… yeah. I’m ok. I’m good.”

“Why don’t you hold the goose,” I show him how to hold the goose with one arm and then help him to achieve the result, followed by my quick preparation of the shot and the injection of it into the breast before either Peeta or the gander could protest.

“There, one problem down, now we just have to clean these wounds, don’t we buddy?” I pet the gander gently, I have a soft spot for geese, sue me. Before I can ask, Peeta hands me the goose and has the alcohol and a clean cloth prepped.

“You know, you wouldn’t be a bad farm hand.”

“I think growing vegetables is the limit of my farming skills, we should keep him in the house until those wounds heal.

“Sure that’ll go over like a lead balloon.” The idiom my father said so often slipped off my tongue without a thought.

“A what?” Peeta looks on confused as he puts the materials away and wipes down the table with some alcohol. Apparently school did not explain Seam terms to the children anymore.

“A lead balloon, um… it’s, well…” How exactly could I describe it? “You ever see a balloon before?” I tilt my head trying to think of a way to explain the novelty of a child’s balloon.

“Yeah, in the Capitol. Effie explained they were used for fun things. A bunch of latex or neoprene encapsulating helium to make it float.”

“Wasn’t expecting such a scientific answer, but yes. So when someone talks about something going down or going over like a lead balloon… they mean the plan’ll sink or fail spectacularly.”

“Why?”

“Because instead of helium and latex, the balloon is made of lead, a highly toxic and dense metal.”

“Oh, you mean Katniss wouldn’t like it. Yeah, we could put him in the hold pen? The one I built for quarantine.”

“Perfect.”

Peeta takes the goose from my arms and departs for a few moments as I turn to contemplate the fox.  
“Now what the hell do I do with you?” I know Katniss has skinning tools but where to find them.? Fur was a useful item even though it hurt me to have to kill such a noble creature.

“He was after your gander Haymitch, not much you could have done with the situation.” I murmur to myself as I take the fox to the butcher block, with its secondary sink. Sure enough, hanging on a strip of magnetized metal, I find her various knives.

“She has a book on fur removal. Get the meat hook, the medium one, tie the hind legs and lift it.”  
Soon enough Peeta is walking me through the process of pelting.  
“Use that wooden block with a hole in it, you just grip the base of the tail and pull.”

I hear the front door open and Katniss walks through to the kitchen in time to see me arms deep in the belly of the beast.

“Haymitch what in the world?” Her voice sounds incredulous at the thought of me doing hunting labor.  
“Surprise sweetheart, I got you an early Yule present, I learned how to hunt finally. Fox tried to catch my prize gander.” 

“You want me to take over?”

“Nah better learn sometime.” I know she can hear the distaste in my voice but she lets my stubborn ass do what I want.

It takes almost twenty minutes but soon the fox is ready to be broken down. That process goes a lot faster. I find I haven’t done a horrible job but I would not be interested in repeating the adventure. Hunting reminds me too much of the games. I only want to do it if I absolutely have to. I’ll hunt to provide if she needs.

By the time we have the fox broken down and the fur stored in a cool place to dry, I find myself tired and the day’s barely begun as far as the regular work is concerned. I wash for the third time and sit for five minutes stifling a yawn.

“Go rest, I can check on the soap set and the cheese.”

“I’ve slept enough.”

“Fine then grab the stock pot, I’m going to teach you how to cook.”

“Unless you’re the one doing the major cooking, you know I’ll burn it just like I did with that chicken the other day.”

“Speaking of chickens, what would you think about raising a few pairs? Michael Lustig, the settler from Nine ordered a few too many and wants to know if we have room.”

“I’d have to build a new coop but I don’t think that’ll be a problem, it’ll be a nice change of pace from goose eggs.”

I notice Peeta pressing on his right leg, rubbing at it, his eyes squinting in pain.

“When’s the last time you gave that leg of yours a day off?”

“The last time she went over to you.” I can hear the derision in his voice and wonder if its directed at himself or me, “The nerve endings get really raw when it isn’t attached but sometimes… like now, it’s too painful to leave on.

“That’s why you scream?”

“That… the war… everything started with me losing this damn leg.”

“Did you ever let Katniss see you without it?”

“No.” There’s alarm in his voice.

“Relax, no one is going to make you do anything, but you’re obviously in pain.”

“Promise me you won’t let her see.”

“Kat, Peeta’s teaching me to cook, don’t come in or you’re probably going to regret the state of this kitchen!”

Hearing her distant laughter off in the study and the call of “Good luck Peeta!", made Peeta’s tense body ease back into the easy flowing state we’d gotten into.

“It’s almost two and I haven’t taken my pills yet.”

“Shit… you take them twice a day, 6 am and 6 pm….”

“It’s happened before, I just need to take them now so that I don’t have an attack. The dispenser pack from the Capitol is in the third drawer down on the sink. I’ll grab them, you just get the pot, I’m going to teach you a recipe for that meat, it’ll take about four hours, but it’s worth it. Then while it’s cooking we’ll eat lunch and get ready to go to the church.”

“Not until you take that leg off for a little while.”

“Fine… you really want to see it? Because it isn’t pretty.”

“Never said it would be.”

I watch him stand painfully, grab the pills and strip off his jeans. The line where the prosthetic joined his natural leg was enflamed and obviously sore.

“I’m supposed to take it off every three days for a few hours, normally I do that in my studio but lately everything has been so busy. I actually forgot it existed until it started to ache again. Can you believe that?” He presses at the join, seeking some invisible lever or button and I watch synthetic flesh fold back, the hiss of fluid or some pressurized seal starts to let go,  
“It’s the pump and the arterial-veinous shunt, it sends blood to the rest of the leg.”

“So you’re telling me that when it’s attached, that leg is fully alive? I thought it just sent the signal to move, with some sensations.”  
He shook his head, “Capitol med at its finest right here. Wish it could belong to someone else.”  
Peeta gives the leg a twist to the right and then to the left with his good hand and I notice a ball of metal expose itself as the leg slips off.

“Help me grab it. I can’t let it fall.” I come around the table and catch the leg in my hands, surprised at how heavy it is. The mixture of grief and relief on his face is palpable but I can tell he’s still in extreme pain despite the alleviation of the pressure.

“Is there anything they can give you for the pain?”

“Pain meds are kind of a luxury right now, but I have some.” Peeta gestures to the pills in his hand, a new yellow pill rested there, "Hydromorphone, Dilaudid. Like morphling but it doesn’t last as long. I have to watch taking it with Lithium, it could take longer to filter out of my blood and with Keppra… it can make me aggressive along with some other things.” Shrugging, he swallowed the pills with some of the coffee he’d set on the table in front of him and shuddered at the revolting taste. “Ugh, forgot the coffee was getting cold.” He went back to massaging his leg.

“How does it feel?” I feel like I’m invading his space but I have a need to understand things from his perspective. Grabbing the fox meat from the cooling shelf above the ice chest I set it on the counter while Peeta thinks for a moment.

“What, the pills or the leg?”

“Both, I’ll share my experiences if you’ll share yours.”

“We need a salt brine, and just so you know, this may stink. Fox is gamey according to Katniss. It should be soaked overnight, but we can put it on low and change the water out a few time. Grab the apple cider and bay leaves, peppercorns and rosemary, along with some garlic and shallots, the baby onions. Juniper berries too. We’ll crack the windows and put Buttercup in the barn.”

“Will it be ok to leave on?” I’d hate the thought of Katniss not having a place to come back to due to my carelessness.

“We’ll use the wood stove side. Essentially, we’re going to boil the meat in the brine to tenderize it and impart the flavor.” Seeing my head tilt in confusion he clarifies further, “Fox meat is really tough.”

As Peeta walks me through the steps of making the brine, the door opens and Katniss stands there looking at Peeta and I with a gaze of unease.”

“Katniss!” He attempts to stand, but falters as he grabs the counter, “Haymitch you were supposed to lock it!”

“Wait, Peeta… I should have knocked.”

“It doesn’t matter, you’ve seen it now. I knew I should have done this in private!” I can hear the sadness in his voice, the vulnerability of having Katniss see him for the first time without his leg.  
“Can someone just help me get my god damned leg so I can take a walk?”

“Peeta wait…”

“NO! I had one request, don’t let her see it! One thing! Please just put the meat in the brine and get me the fucking leg.”

Katniss walks over and goes to grab the prosthesis but I put my hand on hers as she reaches for it. Peeta has his face turned away from us, almost shut down.

“You handle this, and I’ll deal with him.”

“No Haymitch, Peeta and I need to talk.” Katniss moves my hand away from hers and cups my cheek lovingly.

“Then I guess I’ll leave you to it.” I start to leave, mentally preparing myself to stand just outside the door if I have to intervene, I won’t let them hurt each other.

“Stay, you’re a part of this too. Get me the leg, I really don’t like not being able to walk around.”

Katniss grabs the prosthetic and walks over to Peeta as we stand there like three tributes in the final moments of the games. Only one of us will get out of this unscathed.

Peeta looks at her like a vulnerable wolf looks at the members of its pack, wanting to slink away to suffer and biting those who attempt to aid the injury.

“Teach me how you put it on Peeta.”

“Just give me the leg Everdeen.” He has his hands out, gesturing for it with insistence. 

“Show me you insufferable, stubborn ass!”

“Hey, hey… can we not use names maybe? That’s not how we’re going to get through this.”  
“Maybe not but it sure as hell helps to get it out!” Her hands are balled at the sides of her hips and I feel like she’s going to knock him in the head or worse wrestle him to the ground.

Peeta suddenly bursts into laughter and I’m wondering if he’s had a psychotic break.  
"All the names in the world to call me and the best you can come up with is stubborn ass?”

“It was the first thing that came to mind.” I watch her kneel holding the leg up to the join where it’s supposed to connect and see Peeta’s face soften slightly.  
“I’m still really pissed at you Abernathy.”

“Hey, who wasn’t bound to get pissed off at some point? It’s been almost four weeks, any more and I would have thought we were a miracle set. Who’d ever heard of three victors in a relationship? There’s always awkwardness.” I set the fox haunches and rump in the water and cover it after adding the ground juniper berries.

“Press here, the seal will pop up.” He points to the middle of the prone part of his thigh and directs her fingers to a square ridge just under the surface of his skin. I see synth flesh fold out loosely and what looks like a gasket lower into place around the metal ball where his knee would normally be.  
“Now take the prosthetic and turn the foot to the left, you’ll be able to slide it up over the ball, then turn it to the right once it’s on and press up. You’ll see a red light blink. That light needs to blink twice before you can turn the foot straight, it’s the nerve and muscle induction sensor. You can turn the foot straight after it blinks and then press that button again to engage the seal and the pump. The skin will tighten and all you should see is that little red line.”

I marvel at the ingenuity of Capitol medicine and at the same time lament what it has done to the man I’ve come to develop a relationship with. He hisses as the nerves and blood sources reestablish their connection, the leg pinking up in completion, signifying a successful link.

“Ahh, that hurts like a bitch every time.” He stands up, shaking the leg and stamps his foot lightly, testing the muscles. After putting his jeans back on he walks past Katniss giving her hair a light brush before coming over to me.

“Still want to punch me?”

“Honestly yes, but you can make it up to me later.” He leans over and nips at my neck without warning, a painful bite that leaves me weak in the knees with the promise of more, (if the look in his eyes is anything to go by) I am in trouble.

By the time three o’clock rolls around, I see Johanna and Annie driving up Victor’s Way in a borrowed lumber truck.

“Johanna and Annie are here!” I yell it through the open doorway, thankful that we were allowing the house to air. the gaminess of the fox did dissipate for the most part but it left a slight iodine almost ammonia cleanser smell as a remnant. Peeta just added more cider vinegar and garlic but Katniss said that it was the impurities needing to be strained off.

I stand up from the stoop, grabbing Johanna’s hand in a firm grip as she pulls me in, her strength as usual, not a surprise.

“Thought you’d be drunk off your ass.”

“Eh, things change.”

“Things, or _things?”_

My last letter… I pull her down, hissing as Annie walks past and greets Peeta with a kiss to the cheek.

“Do not let her know we talked about anything.”

“I won’t if you won’t, Finnick’s mother almost…”

“You are _kidding_ me.”

“I wish, how’s baker boy taking it?”

“He’s involved.”

“You mean…? Go on then!” She hip checks me and whoops, the sound echoing across the quiet square. This is going to be a long visit.

===============================================

At four we find ourselves sitting in the pews of the church, my family resting along with Prim’s and others. In total we have six spaces beneath the church floor and six ossuary to inter. Johanna and Annie had come for Prim as we had come for Finnick all those months ago but were shocked to learn of my own family being placed to rest.

The priest leads us all in “The Old There Before” and I find myself having to leave for a few minutes, Copal and Frankincense are too strong for my lungs to handle or so I lie to myself.  
Leaning against the heavy oak doors, my hand traces over the tree I helped carve, with the names of every one of the fallen in District Twelve that we could recall. I find my mother and brother’s names. Naomi Abernathy, Adam Abernathy Date: 22nd July 2150 C.E., C. E… Capitol Era. Now we’re known as Republic of Panem, R.E.: Year One, as if we can erase the last eighty-nine years since the old world.

It’s amazing how fast the government is reestablishing itself. The Council of Thirteen is starting to loosen the reigns and Paylor is assigning duties to those who are forming the election verification service. I have yet to tell Katniss that I’ve been elected to oversee the process from vote to finish in Twelve. I hear the reformist prayer for release from a violent death and it takes me back to that first night back in Twelve after my games. The night that the priest prayed by my side. I left religion soon after, he couldn’t even recall my mother’s name. Now at least the priest had an excuse. He could wait till the end and read their names and dates off of a sheet of paper.

_“Father, we bring before You those that have had the devastating experience of having someone close to them that they know and love, suffer a sudden, violent and needless death. Lord how we grieve for those that are having to experience this right now, and we pray that in Your grace You would look down with pity and mercy and meet them right at their point of need.  
Lord, You are the one Who was sent to heal the broken-hearted and comfort those that mourn and are heavy-laden. You are the One Who promised that Your grace is sufficient for every eventuality – even for those having to face the sudden and violent death of someone close to them. Draw near to them we pray and lift them up into You arms of love and carry them during this time of suffering and grief for You have promised that underneath are Your everlasting arms.  
Lord, as we lift up in prayer those that are having to come to terms with the sudden and violent death of a loved one – we pray that You would use this tragedy to be the thing that starts to draw each suffering soul into the tender arms of their Savior – the Lord Jesus Christ, in Whose name we pray,  
Amen.”_

“That’s all well and good father but where was the Lord’s grace when an eleven ton explosive ordinance leveled our home and killed our people?”

I hear the voice of Leon Sellers, a former Peace Keeper, crying as Johanna opens the door, pressing it against my now turned back.

“You’d better have a flask in that suit pocket of yours.”

“A flask and a few joints,” joints, the Seven term for green man cigarettes.

“Oh, if I weren’t majorly into one woman right now I’d kiss you.”

“I’ve got two people on my plate as it is, how’s she holding up in there?”

“Annie? She’s ok, but Katniss… she’s crying. Don’t worry, Peeta’s got it.”

“He can’t handle heavy stress Jo, trust me.” As I go to go back inside, she forces me to pause.

“Wait, look… “ She points to the pew where Katniss is now drying her eyes and Peeta is whispering softy to her, “Seems like he’s handling things fine.”

“He’s got some good drugs in his system right now.”

“Lucky, Annie won’t even let me take a baby aspirin without getting nervous. How in the world does she even let you smoke herb?”

“It cuts down on the heavy drinking.”

The cold wind is nipping at our faces but between us we share the flask, passing it back and forth as she pauses to light up a cigarette, passing it to me and I take a puff.

“How is it that you can get pot to grow well in this soil, but not tobacco? I thought you used to be the kings of it.” Johanna leans back against the railing, trying not to shiver in her black dress and short pea coat.

“We were the kings of coal, Six produces more tobacco than we ever did. Besides _this_ is from Peeta’s greenhouse,” I hold up the cigarette and smille, "Sae's sweet leaf."

“Beetee’s in the midst of constructing a massive soil replenisher for Nine, it’s apparently going to reintroduce nutrients to deficient soil, maybe it can work here.”

“Still trying to redeem himself I see, the bomb in the capitol may have been designed by him, but he didn’t deploy it.” I take another swallow of brandy feeling my head beginning to get that muddled feeling I still crave.

“No, Gale and Coin did.” Katniss opens the door, “They’re asking you to come back inside Haymitch. The internment is starting. You really shouldn’t be drinking today Haymitch. And you,” she turns to Johanna, “ you shouldn’t be encouraging him.”

“Come on, you are both burying family. Annie and I… we, well we sent Finnick off in style remember? We had a boat burning and everything. Besides, isn’t it a Seam tradition to send the dead off with laughter and a good drink?”

“Tonight happens to be the first full night of the remembrance, so they’ll hang around a little longer than tonight. Put the cigs out, we need to go back in.”

The rest of the service left me with a bad taste in my mouth, the priest said all the correct words and did the right actions but the fact that there was a funeral memorial at all made me feel sick. I should just take my family and go to our old home, bury them quietly without prayers and useless platitudes.

When Katniss came home with me all those months ago sick from withdrawal and eager to die I didn’t know what to do. I could have let her die and she would be buried here just like the bones of my family. Instead, in my inebriated state I told Sae to keep watch over her by day. Yet, what she didn’t know is that I held her by night, feeling just as sick seeing the person I helped create. There weren’t enough prayers then. 

Why is it that we pray so often for the living than we do the dead? Why did we only remember them once a year? I watch her, hale and nearly whole as she sings hymns, finding the release months ago that I’ve never managed to find until last night.  
Peeta squeezes my hand and it makes sense, we don’t pray much for the dead because people are too busy selfishly living with what little time they have left.

We watch the priest and his curates lower my ossuary into the ground. I feel a profound sense of sadness and relief at the same time. They were finally free, but what about the some five hundred or more who couldn’t be identified beneath the snow of the meadow? People whom Katniss and I helped inter?

As the priest leads us to the meadow, we sing the old church hymn of Twelve, “For the beauty of meadows.” I knew this one well, but singing about the beauty of a creation when hundred of remains made their graves? I didn’t think it was appropriate. Instead as was tradition once the blessing was finished, I find my voice singing out a song I hadn’t sung since Maislee died in the arena.

“Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there… I do not sleep.”

Katniss and Peeta knew the funerary song well and carried on with other voices joining in, our song ringing out across the valley. Katniss’ voice is like crystal reverberating and I find tears once more. I find others joining me in pulling out flasks of what little liquor they had as someone sings Ave Maria. Johanna and Annie… A violin joins in backing them as we pour the spirits to the earth in Merchant fashion. Peeta finishes once everyone quiets with a simple but final Merchant farewell:

“Thou goest home this night  
to thy home of autumn,  
and of spring and of summer.  
thou goest home this night  
to thy perpetual home,  
to thine eternal bed  
to thine eternal slumber”


End file.
